The Los Angeles Angels hit the road to play three against San Francisco, and their players are drawing interest.
The Los Angeles Angels are heading up the coast to open their three-game series against the San Francisco Giants, and this series promises plenty of player intrigue as the trade deadline draws closer.
This game won’t mean anything in the standings, with both teams buried in the bottom of their respective divisions. For the Halos, though, performances are now magnified with offers being considered on controllable players.
Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez is a wild card in this one. The Halos have no idea what they’re going to get from him from start to start, as he tends to alternate good starts with more questionable ones.
Rodriguez’s last start was one of the bad ones, as he gave up six runs, all earned, against the Detroit Tigers in four disappointing innings. Before that he had a solid start against the Minnesota Twins, as he gave up three runs in 5-1/3 innings.
The uneven results from the trade that sent Taylor Ward to the Baltimore Orioles constitute one of the major failures of the Angels season, but at this point the Angels are basically stuck trying to get as much as possible from Rodriguez while crossing their fingers that he doesn’t end up on the injured list again.
Logan Webb will be on the mound for the Giants, and his situation is just as controversial, albeit in a completely different way. The Giants are widely expected to be sellers, but most of the early buzz had Webb being off limits in a market that’s decidedly short of starting pitching.
Webb’s recent performances have mostly been good, although he did cough up a Coors Field hairball against the Colorado Rockies in which he gave up seven runs on 11 hits in just three innings. But Webb gave up just three runs in 6-2/3 innings against the Seattle Mariners, so expectations in this one will be close to that pitching line.
The Giants are nearly as bad as the Angels at 42-60, and they’re currently fighting to stay out of the basement in the NL West, as they’re just two games ahead of the woeful Colorado Rockies. It’s been a lost season in San Francisco as well, although expectations were much higher for the Giants.
Another bit of good news for the Angels is that the Giants will be dragging a five-game losing streak into the series. These two teams can’t get out of their own way, but they do have plenty of players that will be closely watched by scouts in an otherwise forgetttable matchup.
